were flatterers sprung from the dregs of the people, and recommended by nothing but buffoonery and, servility.  It is said that he had arrived at the last stage of human depravity, when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the sight of pain as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement.  It had early been his amusement to torture beasts and birds; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English.  It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed.  He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other quarter.  Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found.  The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without special permission from the Nabob.  A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up.  On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.

The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers.  Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger.  The governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah’s cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship.  The military commandant thought that he could not do better than follow so good an example.  The fort was taken after a feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors.  The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him.  His Highness talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found, but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest.

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed.  The English captives were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole.  Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow.  The space was only twenty feet square.  The air-holes were small and obstructed.  It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England